Sarah Billington

Our group focuses on understanding the impact of building design and materials on human wellbeing, developing design tools to quantify nature experience in buildings, and understanding the role of the built environment in public perceptions of and support for affordable housing. We explore how buildings can include both physical and digital adaptations to improve wellbeing outcomes including new methods of bringing nature and the experience of nature into buildings. We are interested in how building management systems can be extended beyond providing energy savings, thermal comfort, and security to support and maintain a broader set of human wellbeing outcomes while preserving occupant privacy. Further, we are studying the impact of built features, including historic structures, on community wellbeing and methods of design for community wellbeing that support the equitable development of affordable and permanent supportive housing. While not longer active in this area, our group also has a long history of expertise in the design and evaluation of sustainable, durable construction materials, their application to structures and construction, including damage-tolerant, high-performance fiber-reinforced cementitious composite materials, and bio-based fiber-reinforced polymeric composites and insulating foams that have a closed loop life-cycle.